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Day 18: Columbia Valley

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Another North American Road Trip Day 18 Monday, July 6th With no morning hike to tempt us out of our tents, we slept in, had an oatmeal breakfast at the campsite, and drove out around 10:30.  Upon a second sighting of a group of “goats” from yesterday outside of Radium, we have determined that, perhaps, those are the sheep. None of them had the iconic big spiraling horns I was expecting. And with their coats shedding off they are a bedraggled little flock.   We stopped in Radium at the information centre and asked about a hike for today. They gave us a recommendation in the Columbia valley, a HooDoo hike.  We drove South and followed the instructions on the pamphlet to the trailhead. We hiked up the trail, until we were on top of the hoodoo formation. The views out over the Columbia River, near its headwaters, was very lovely.  We were hot, and the mosquitos were again targeting Bryan, so we hiked quickly back down to the cruck. The estimate for how long the hik...
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Day 17: More Banff and Kootenay National Park

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  Another North American Road Trip Day 17 Sunday, July 5th We woke up. None of us had been eaten by bears. Nor had there been any excitement during the night. We slept longer than intended.  We ate various bars for breakfast and packed up the campsite. Then we drove toward our planned hike, hoping there would be room in the parking lot despite our late departure.  We got to the trailhead parking lot at 7:50AM. It was only 2/3 full. We parked easily and started our hike.  Before long we were going up walkways pinned to the canyon walls above the frosty turquoise water rushing below. The trail followed the river. Both Desmond and I noticed that we didn’t seem to be having as much trouble with the elevation. Checking my watch I learned we were above 4000 ft, but much lower than other places we have hiked on this trip so far.  We continued on, until we got to the lower falls. We waited in a short queue to walk through a little tunnel like spot in the rock to get rig...
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Day 16: Banff National Park

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  Another North American Road Trip Day 16 Saturday, July 4th Having learned that the line to enter Banff National Park can be hours long unless you get through the gates before 8AM, and knowing we are staying about an hour and a half away from those gates, we chose to sleep in and went down to breakfast shortly after 8:30.    Our game plan is to get a slow start, and enter the park in the later afternoon when the lines start to die down.  We left the hotel around 9:30 and went and gassed up the cruck. Then we headed over to the largest game store in the world (which had made an impression on Bryan when he was here more than 20 years ago). We had a great time looking around, oohing and ahhing and generally spending all the money in our heads. We got out of there half and hour later very inexpensively, all things considered. Bryan got a pack of cards for way less than he could find it at home or online, and we got him some terrain for a game he’s been playing regularly...
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